Here at We ❤️ Health Literacy Headquarters, we simply can’t get enough of practical, actionable resources for health communicators. So this week, we wanted to tell you about a relatively new resource to hit the health comm scene: the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security’s Practical playbook for addressing health misinformation.
The need to address health misinformation (and its friend disinformation) is one of the most significant communication legacies of the COVID pandemic. Of course, misinformation isn’t a new concept, but there’s no denying that health communicators are grappling with misinfo-related issues more often than we did in the beforetimes. This rise in mis/disinfo has sparked posts from us on strategies for debunking harmful health myths — like the trusty truth sandwich or prebunking.
So you can imagine our delight when we came across this playbook, all about dealing with misinformation! This comprehensive resource, which builds on CDC’s lays out a phased approach to preventing the spread of misinformation:
- Prework: Actions to take before rumors arise
- Step 1: Decide whether to address the rumor
- Step 2: Take action to address misinformation
- Step 3: Evaluate anti-misinformation messages
And it features lots of great stuff: a checklist that breaks down all the key phases and strategies, a message development guide, a truth sandwich worksheet. What else do we really need to say to sell this to you, dear readers?!
If you want to learn more about the playbook, check out the news release from its launch back in February. We hope you’ll check it out and share with your networks!
The bottom line: Check out the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security’s new playbook — it’s all about addressing misinformation, and that’s an important part of our work as health communicators.
Copy/paste to share on social (and tag us!): Helpful #HealthComm resource alert! 🚨 This week, CommunicateHealth is chatting about the #misinformation playbook from the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security: https://bit.ly/3Us2NTK #HealthCommunication #HealthLiteracy
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